Centrist Pundits

Which of the following is an example of low-level idiocy?

— Spending more than you take in on a long-term basis

— Bailing out billionaires but not the middle and lower classes

— Putting troops in harm’s way without sufficient armor

— The Pentagon’s exam on terrorism 

The answer, for the record, is the recent exam by the Pentagon, which equated protesting with low-level terrorism.  (The other examples in my question are high-level idiocy!)

Seriously, this was a question on an exam by the Pentagon in a course on learning about terrorism:

“Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?”

— Attacking the Pentagon

— IEDs

— Hate crimes against racial groups

— Protests

The correct answer, according to the exam, is “Protests.”  I can only assume that since the others are all types of terrorism, they must be high-level stuff.  Now, I want to be fair to the Pentagon here.  They have said that the exam is for people who are stationed abroad and who, as a rule, should avoid protests in other nations.  And they are probably right about that, if only because protests can become violent and no one should really be there unless they are a protestor or the media or someone else who is choosing to be in harm’s way.

But it still paints the issue with far too broad a brush for my comfort.  I am not the biggest proponent (nor am I an opponent) of the ACLU but they are right in questioning the Pentagon’s phrasing of this question.  It does certainly seem to imply – or outright state – that protest is terrorism, and that serves to undermine the very freedoms of speech and assembly that we hold dear as Americans.

Within our borders, the ability to protest is one of the cornerstones of our liberties, of our right to freedom of expression.  This right has been repeatedly diluted over the years with “free speech zones” near Presidential rallies (hey, President Bush – AMERICA is my free speech zone) and other such nonsense.  And it’s a freedom available to both sides of the aisle.  You want to protest the Iraq war outside President Bush’s Crawford Ranch?  No problem.  You want to hold a “teabagging” party?  Also no problem.

Okay, I admit it, I just look for any excuse to snicker at the phrase teabagging.

Outside our borders, protests are also a legitimate form of expression, and not necessarily nascent terrorism.  The recent protests in Iran are an example of this.  I’m not sure what happened in the election – I’m fairly sure there was fraud, but I suppose there’s an outside chance that there was not, which as a friend of mine said, makes any attempts to overturn what happened a coup – but the protestors have not been the scary ones.  The only people terrorizing anyone in that regime is the government.

Like I said, I think I get what the Pentagon was trying to do.  If they really were trying to say that a protest has the potential to turn violent and become terroristic, then I would agree.  But the simple statement that protests are terrorism is to simple, and it is wrong, and it is offensive to any patriot.

JC National Politics, Society ACLU, culture, free speech, language, Pentagon, protests

Okay, everyone, today’s post needs context.  I don’t always offer context for my posts, assuming that my readership is the kind that reads the news sites as well, but sometimes, if it is a minor story, people may not know what I’m talking about.  So go here:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/08/gop-senator-to-obama-you-got-nerve/

or, if you prefer, go to:

http://twitter.com/ChuckGrassley

Now, one might think I’m about to attack Chuck Grassley on the issues.  I’m not.  Senator Grassley and I are on opposite sides of the aisle but that’s okay.  I can’t recall Grassley ever doing anything that truly offended me so I will assume he is one of the true believer conservatives who argues his points out of a feeling that his view is correct, and I can respect that.

But I cannot respect anyone who abuses the English language like that.  I know it is twitter and I know it is limited to 140 characters but come on.  I have a twitter account for my private life and I can probably count on one hand my uses of “leet” speak that weren’t ironic or mistakes.  I write complete sentences.  If I can’t make it in 140 characters, I use a shorter synonym or do 2 tweets.

Mr. Grassley, you are a senator.  Please, write like one.  No one thinks you are cool cause you use the 4 instead of for, or u for you, or “skedul” for schedule, which isn’t even really leet speak, but is instead nonsense.

This site is so bad, in fact, that even with CNN mentioning it on their political ticker, I have to suspect it is a fake.  And if it is a fake, then shame on you faker, for making a politician look stupid.  Most politicians are perfectly capable of doing that on their own.

I understand that languages evolve, and I even support it as a general rule.  But there are those who should make an endeavor to do it right according to our current linguistic guidelines, and I think a United States Senator is one of those who should serve as a role model.

JC Congress, Media culture, Grassley, language, twitter

I am not an expert in Republican politics.  Well, to be fair, I’m not an expert on anything, just some guy mouthing off about stuff.  But I’m particularly not an expert on Republican politics.  So perhaps there are historical or insider reasons why the party does some of the things it does that I don’t know, being outside the party. 

For example, the rebranding effort, which takes all of the same party leaders that were there before, and has them saying pretty much the same things.  I’m not a marketing expert either, but I’m pretty sure that rebranding requires some sort of change, even if it’s a minor one.  Golden Crisp is the same cereal as Sugar Crisp, but they changed the name because Sugar is unhealthy these days.  KFC is still Kentucky Fried Chicken, just without the connotations of being fried (or is the connotations of being chicken?).  But saying “Sugar Crisp is rebranding to… Sugar Crisp!” sounds kind of crazy.  A new spokesperson, a new symbol, a new name.  Any of that would be better than what they are doing.  Drop the elephant for a lion or something.  (I said I’m not a marketing expert)  Take a lesson from the Democrats, who realized that the word liberal had been fairly effectively poisoned to mean “weak” and started touting the word Progressive instead. 

(All of that ignores the fact that some of the old guard who isn’t signed on to the rebranding effort… the Dick Cheneys and the Rush Limbaughs… need to be muzzled)

But at least the rebranding effort is a try.  I can give the party points for making the effort on that one.  But the news that the Republican National Committee is seeking to pass a resolution encouraging the Democratic Party to change its name to the Democratic Socialist Party… I don’t even get it.  I don’t.  It isn’t clever.  It isn’t funny.  It isn’t important.  It isn’t accurate.  It isn’t even effective, given that more and more people are looking towards things like some sort of national health care to be put in the mix.  In other words, socialism isn’t much liked, but it isn’t the poisonous well it used to be.  The are only two things such a resolution is: desperate, and news.  Desperate because they are hoping to get votes from people who will probably see through it, and news because, well, the news organizations have a lot of time to fill these days.

I’m not Michael Steele’s biggest fan, but he’s made the right call by pointing out that it is sorta pointless and ridiculous.  In fact, I’m pretty sure Steele doesn’t go far enough; this is the kind of thing that gets people so fed up with their party.  (Either party.  I’d be fed up with the Democrats passing a resolution to call Republicans names, too.)  Name calling doesn’t accomplish anything, and it isn’t what people are looking for.  People are looking for ways to move the nation forward to where they want the nation to be.  Economic recovery and the economic prosperity; safety in every sense of that word, and the rights guaranteed to us by our governing documents are just part of what every American is looking for ideas on how to implement in our modern, crazy world.  There is so much fertile soil for ideas.  Where are they?

Yes, I’m going to blatantly steal from Sorkin here; in “The American President”, it is said Americans are so thirsty for leadership we’ll walk through a desert seeking a drink of it, we’ll go to a mirage and then drink the sand.  But Americans are done drinking sand.  We drank the sand because we didn’t know any better.  We’ve learned.

JC Media, Political Parties, Society gop, language, Steele

Governments are large, powerful organizations that, if left unfettered, can cause serious problems for those that are governed.  This is why our founding fathers did their best to create a system of government that had plenty of checks and balances, to prevent power from corrupting, and to prevent any one faction from pushing forward their own agenda without considering the needs of others.

Our government is well designed in this regard, even if it slows things down.  3 branches, and one of those branches is actually split in two parts.  2 of those branches are elected, so the people can decide if those in it are corrupt and can replace them, while the last branch is appointed for life, but has little power to effect itself, so those lifetime appointments are more about reducing the possibility of being swayed by those outside then about preventing corruption from within.

At this point, you’re probably all wondering if this is going to be about the Democrats controlling the White House and both Houses of Congress.  But it isn’t.  The checks and balances inherent in the government are great, I wouldn’t want to live without them.  But they aren’t the only way to try and keep Government honest.  There is also the Press.

In theory, the Press is supposed to ask the Government hard questions about why they do things, investigate and report on things the Government is trying to keep secret, basically, be nosy on our behalf, and alert us when we need to get off our duffs and do something.

The Press has been weakened over the years by all sorts of factors.  The rise of the internet has made many news organizations transform themselves, not always for the better, as they lose their advertisers and they lose their audience’s attention.  Entertainment and news have become intertwined.  Reporters have become friendly with those reported upon, in hopes of gaining “better access” they can also be more easily manipulated.  Sometimes, politicians just implant completely fake reporters in to the equation to ask softball questions or even frame questions in lies.  Bloggers can and do sometimes just make things up wholesale, pundits and politicians use talking points rather than actual conversation.  All in all, bunches of different things chipping away at a strong press asking strong, difficult questions of the Government.

It was so bad, in fact, that it seemed like the responsibility for questioning our Government had moved out of the news media all together.  Bloggers would bring things up, but it can be hard to tell the legitimate news blogs from people blathering on, and the signal to noise made it impossible to know what to act on.  Comedy shows would call things in to question, but it is hard to take things seriously when your show is advertised as humor, not news.

I think the news media wants its job back.  By and large, many of them are still not being as responsible as I think they should be, but we’re seeing signs.  Last night’s Obama press conference had a series of mostly serious questions about serious topics, and surprisingly little “how’s Bo the dog doing?”  On the flip side, sometimes they seem to have forgotten that they can do these things with respect.  I applaud Rick Sanchez for calling out nonsense statements on behalf of Jim Demint, but he probably could have done it more respectfully than “What the hell does that mean?”.  Even “With all due respect, what does that mean, sir?” would convey the same meaning  (and trust me, you can load “with all due respect” with sarcasm) while at the same time being a bit more respectful.  I don’t agree with anything Demint says, and his statement was inane, but he’s still a Senator, and even if you don’t respect that, he’s still a fellow human being.

That said, good for Sanchez for not letting him prattle on about nonsense.

JC Media, National Politics, Society checks and balances, language, Media

This morning, my wife had to ask me what had me chortling, laughing out loud.  It was that I had read, and then watched, Barack Obama making a fairly big gaffe, talking about his low bowling score being like something out of the Special Olympics.  I wasn’t laughing at the joke, so much, as the fact that it was such a ridiculously bad statement by the President, and everyone knows it the moment they hear it.

I mean, there’s some pretty simple rules in politics.  Don’t touch Social Security.  Don’t get caught diddling an intern.  Don’t insult Rush, if you’re a Republican.  And another one, for politics and, indeed, for life, is don’t use the handicapped as your metaphor for incompetence.

All in all, this is gonna blow over – Obama has already apologized to the director of the Special Olympics and it was accepted, and I’m sure Obama will do something else conciliatory like be there for the opening of the next national ones, or something.  And frankly, it was inevitable.  Not this particular gaffe in and of itself, but some gaffe or another.  When you’re watched 24/7 as you are as President in this nation, something is going to slip out, just due to human failing.

That said, we gotta give 1 other person their props, and point out one other person’s terrible nature.

Sarah Palin gets the props.  I don’t really think much of Palin (sorry Greg, Trish) but she made some of the classiest statements about the Special Olympics and her own special-needs child.  It was really a well done media moment, and she deserves credit for it.

Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, is proving once again he’s a terrible person.  He’s using this incident to bash Obama as insensitive, and bringing up other incidents of Democrats and gaffes over the handicapped.  Well, you know what, Mr. Limbaugh?  No one has done more disservice to the handicapped over the years then you.  You talk about how people are bilking the taxpayers, how they exaggerate their symptoms, and how if you can’t do something, you should just suffer without.  Except, of course, when you are the one suffering.  

My immediate response to Obama’s gaffe was to think that a Special Olympics bowler could probably bowl better than Obama.  In a similar vein, I want Michael J. Fox to find Rush Limbaugh and kick his ass.

Rush, you are a liar and a hypocrite, and everyone with half an ounce of sense knows it.  Unfortunately, you are entertaining enough that enough people like you that your party can’t denounce you as the monster you are.

Someday, perhaps, your party will wake up and realize that they’d get more votes without you than with you.

JC Society language, obama, Palin, rush

First up, the main act, the main man, President Barack Obama.  The man can speak.  We all know that.  To think that he would deliver anything other than a eloquent speech would be crazy.  But what about what he said?  Overall, it was good.  I know some people decry his lack of specifics (and some people decry the decrying) but honestly, this seems to be Obama’s M.O. – he discusses broad policy in the big speeches, and the specifics come later.  While this may be very frustrating to some, I find it a welcome change from the 8 years of not even learning what broad policies were until after they were implemented.

He is trying to go back to being a cheerleader on the economy, while at the same time not lying about the issues.  This is a tricky line to walk.  He says his people have already identified large amounts to cut from the Government in spending, I’ll be very curious as to what they are.  Cutting our deficit in half by the end of his first term is wildly optimistic and probably unrealistic.

That said, his idea of focusing on energy, health care, and education (and the unsaid fourth focus, economic recovery) is probably a good one.  We spend a ridiculous amount of money on energy, and much of it goes to our enemies.  We probably can’t stop spending a ridiculous amount on energy, but maybe we can spend more of it here.  Maybe.  Getting more people a post-high-school education will, as he said, only help the nation.  And while we don’t know how to fix it quite yet, more and more people are becoming convinced that our crazy spending on a patchwork health care system is a drag on our economy and our quality of life.

A lot has been said about his thought that we can cure cancer.  First of all, I’m not doctor, but I’m less sure that we can “cure” cancer as much as make it “manageable”, like diabetes.  But secondly, Obama has to be aware of the comparisons people make of his Presidency to the TV show “The West Wing”.  This is one of those awkward moments that sort of bring up why that’s a common joke.

All in all, Obama did fine last night.  There wasn’t really a wow, but it was solid.  Obama the President is a little less inspirational than Obama the Candidate, but he almost has to be by definition, more grounded in realities.

And moving on to the other big event of the night, the coming out party, probable candidate Bobby Jindal!… ooops.  Put him back in, the coming out party failed – though I think he’ll recover.

I strongly suspect that the problems with this speech were NOT Jindal’s fault.  He isn’t quite the orator Obama is (or if he is, he didn’t show it tonight) but I think the failure of this speech was on behalf of whoever wrote it, vetted it, and thought it was a good idea.  It has some really awkward stuff, and it has some stuff that may play well on the surface but is kind of nonsense once you dig.

Its good that he talked honestly about the Republican (and the unnamed Neocon branch of the party that’s been in power) failure to deliver on their ideals over the last 8 years.  I don’t think he followed it up with much about how the party PLANS to regain America’s trust, instead going the easier route of bashing the stimulus package.

Easier, but perhaps less appropriate.  Yes, Obama talked about the stimulus.  He talked about a lot of things.  Jindal’s speech wasn’t so much a response to Obama as a second speech from the opposition; that is, it didn’t address many of Obama’s points.  Perhaps we should give up on the instant response and just wait for it a week later, so an actual response can be crafted.

Jindal’s speech have some effective use of language at parts, using connotation to quietly undermine Democratic points and strengthen Republican ones.  One could expect no less.

Still, the talking points about the waste in the stimulus are becoming stale – and one big one is even fairly crazy.  Yes, perhaps the new cars for the government or the high speed rail projects should have been in other bills – though you can’t tell me the building of high speed rails won’t create jobs – but the dismissal of the volcano monitoring… okay, again, maybe, *maybe* that belonged in another bill, but if you live in Hawaii or Seattle or other places with volcanoes, it saves lives.  This isn’t theory, its fact – Clark air base, Phillipines, 1991.  Attacking life-saving measures is never popular, even if it gets you a somewhat clever metaphor using the word eruption.

I also have doubts about a man touting his rejection of stimulus money, and attacking the stimulus, when he’s only rejecting a small fraction of the money outlined for his state.  Louisiana is set to get $3.8 billion, and he’s going to accept $3.7 billion of it.  Whatever floats his boat, politically, that his voters will let him get away with and remain in office, but that’s a thing razor to score political points on.

He attacked the spending, saying it would saddle future generations with debt, and asking who would do that.  The answer: most American governments over time.  Not quite nonsense on his part, but close.

And then the most awkward moment of the evening: saying that Democrats promise big government will rescue us from economic storms… with the follow up “those of us who lived through Katrina have our doubts.”  Really?   REALLY?  Katrina was a national tragedy of epic proportions, and while there’s plenty of blame to go around on the infrastructure issues that caused it, the problems with the immediate responses to Katrina go, part and parcel, to Republicans.  THINK, Jindal, think before you speak.

I’ve given equal time to Jindal here, perhaps more than he deserves, because in the end, a response to a first time Presidential speech is rather unimportant.  But this was supposed to be a big deal to Jindal, and I can’t help but feel he was the outfielder who dropped a ball.  He stated that Republicans, when they disagree with Democrats, should be there to offer up their alternative ideas.  I think many are still waiting for that to happen.

JC Congress, Economy, National Politics, Political Parties finance, Jindal, language, obama

There exist issues which I really don’t want to confront on this site, yet are relevant.  One such issue is the question of the New York post cartoon that depicted police officers, having shot a chimp, saying that the next stimulus will need a new author.

Was it racist or not?  I don’t know.  Back when I used to analyze literature regularly, we usually had to go off the just the text.  Sometimes we knew the authors intent, but often, the intent wasn’t explicit.  There’s a lot of people out there stating that the use of a chimp as a code-image to refer to Obama’s African-American heritage is obvious, but I don’t buy that.  Perhaps if the cartoonist were an admitted member of the KKK, I’d be more inclined to believe his intent was sinister.  But the chimp just looked like a chimp, it wasn’t labeled Obama nor did it look like it him.  

For that matter, we’ve had a President recently who does look remarkably chimp like, and it came up a lot.  His name was George W. Bush.

On the other hand, I have a real hard time believing that no layer of editorial approval at the Post noticed that it was a possible racism issue.  I know I just made a case that it isn’t necessarily racist but that a: doesn’t mean it isn’t racist and b: doesn’t mean that it doesn’t appear racist.  Someone should have said “Waaaait a second, could their even possibly appear..”  Its hard to conclude anything other than the Post wanting a little publicity, one way or another.

The real problem is that the cartoon wasn’t funny.  It just wasn’t funny.  There’s nothing funny about shooting a human-like animal like a chimp.  There was nothing funny about the recent chimp attack the cartoon was purportedly playing off of.  There isn’t anything funny about police violence.  There isn’t even anything really funny about the stimulus or about the idea that America may need further help with the economy.

Surely if there is a cardinal sin in the art of creating cartoons, it is not being funny.  Even if you think political cartoons don’t need to be funny, they need to communicate their message clearly, and given the confusion over the comic, it didn’t even do this.

Racist?  Not racist?  I dunno.  I’m barely interested in discussing it, because there are real racial issues (and other political issues) to discuss in its place, when we aren’t distracted.  If we’re going to be art critics (for a cartoon that, I guess, qualifies as art) let’s critique what makes sense about it… it just wasn’t funny.

JC Society culture, language

While I’ll be writing a longer, actual post later today, fivethirtyeight.com had two interesting posts I wanted to share:

One on global warming: 

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/george-f-will-takes-on-science-loses.html

and one touching on the term progressive, as I tried to do the other day:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/two-progressivisms.html

JC Environment Environment, language, links

So, I have a request for the new leader of the RNC, Michael Steele.  Stop oversimplifying things, okay?

Now, there are real differences of opinion on the stimulus bill, even peeling out all the pork.  The major difference of opinion is in what drives the economy positively – tax cuts or government spending?  Both sides of the argument have plenty of support, evidence, anecdotal support, and economists speaking from positions of authority to back up their side of the case.

But no matter which side you support, the desired outcome is the same: more jobs.  This is pretty simple, more people working means more people spending, creating more jobs, etc.  If you believe in government spending, the government itself directly creates those jobs, by saying “build (or retrofit) this building!” and people go to work designing and building.  If you believe in tax cuts, you believe that when businesses owe less to the government, they’ll have more money for payroll, and hire more people, which is good, because the individuals who also owe less to the government have more money to spend, and they may well be coming in to spend it at your place of business.

I have no problem with either side of that case.  I do have a problem with Steele’s statements, however.  Steele has been quoted as saying that government jobs are not real jobs, and that construction jobs are not real jobs.

I work for the government, and I’d really like to know why I go to an office every day if not to my real job, and I’d also like to know why the government gives me money if I’m not doing work for them?  But more seriously, I think I know Steele’s point, I think he was trying to say that if the job doesn’t naturally exist in a market outside of government interference, perhaps it is unsustainable.  He may be right, although again, there are plenty of government jobs that do have to exist if the government is to exist.  Heck, to generalize a group, the military tends to vote Republican, and they have government jobs, and they have some really REAL jobs.

I’m pretty sure I know what he meant about construction jobs, too.  I’m sure my brother-in-law and thousands of steel workers and other construction workers would be surprised to learn their jobs aren’t real but only exist in dreamland… but what Steele meant is that a construction job isn’t permanent.  ”Build that building!” has an inevitable end date – the completion of the building.  There’s a bit of willful blindness there forgetting that in a good economy there’s always another building to build or old building to renovate.  But still, he might have a point if he’d just actually make his point.  Although I do wonder, in this day and age, even outside a bad economy, what is a “permanent” job?  Jobs come and go.

I don’t know enough about Steele yet to know if he’s going to be part of the solution or part of the problem, although I think “The Daily Show’s” take on him as a bad imitation of Obama may be somewhat on the money, so far.  Because he took what could be legitimate arguments and boiled them down so far they became nothing but mush.  The extremes of either side reduce things to talking points, and it does not improve political discourse.

One thing the center is good at, by its nature, is understanding that the world is complicated, and understanding that things have nuance.  Both sides, exemplified recently by Michael Steele (though there are surely left-side examples as well) could do well to assume Americans can handle the whole truth.

Is there any chance politicians will stop assuming we aren’t capable of understanding that there aren’t always simple answers?

JC Political Parties language, Steele

Words have power.  The human race knows this on a level approaching instinct – ancient religions discuss the power a name has over the named, the Gospel of John tells us that in the beginning there was the Word.  Orwell taught us that while there may be no language without thought, there is certainly no way to express thought without language.  The pitfall of Political Correctness – whatever that term means today – is that a word and the meaning of the word don’t always remain constant.

This lesson could actually be used in many different ways in politics, from examination of laws and even the Constitution to the meaning behind a politician’s statement, but let’s take it a bit easier than that today, and just talk about words changing opinion.

Liberals are weak-willed sissies who want Osama Bin Laden to kill you and to take all your money while he’s doing it.  Right?  Well, no, but that’s what being a liberal meant for a while.  It meant you didn’t care about keeping America safe.  It meant you hated freedom unless it was for a convict.  It meant you thought drugs and porn should be on every street corner, but no crosses and no flags should be found anywhere.  Well, again, it never meant any of those things, but enough voters were convinced that it did.

And you know what, I haven’t heard the term liberal get bandied about much lately.  I hear talk about progressives.  Air America is a progressive talk station.  Barack Obama is a progressive and the Democratic party has a progressive agenda.  (I’ll grant you the one about Obama may be true)

First of all, real Progressives, why aren’t you more outraged?  I guarantee you for every one legitimate use of your descriptor there’s 9 that aren’t.

But more importantly, isn’t it a fun illustration of the power of language?  Can’t vote for a lily-livered liberal?  Well, then isn’t it good we got a progressive for you?  Progressive!  It just sounds good.  It sounds like progress.  It sounds like a group of people that are forward thinking, that are in to solutions, that want change that will be a real improvement!  Liberals just want to waste your tax money… Progressives want to save America.

I sound like I’m down on “progressivism” but I’m not really.  Rebranding has proven to be an important part of capitalism and it applies to any product that needs to be sold, including a political party.  Every so often it needs a refresh, to knock out all those old connotations and start anew.

I do regret the loss of the word liberal if only because I think of myself as liberal-leaning, not progressive-leaning, and if only because I like accuracy of expression when possible.  Obama may be a progressive but many on his coat-tails are not, and taking the easy route of calling themselves progressives rather than fixing the problems with the word liberals is weak.  Though liberals have been accused of weakness, so maybe that one is true.

What will be interesting is if conservative needs to be rebranded.  I fully expect the Democratic majority to shrink (though not disappear) in both houses of Congress in the midterms, but what if I’m wrong?  What if the specter of neo-“conservatism” and George Bush and Dick Cheney continue to lead to declines for the Republican party?  Well, then we may see the word conservative brushed under the rug for a while as well.  Will Republicans start claiming overall to be Libertarians, like Bob Barr?  Or some other term will come along, perhaps.  I can’t think of one off-hand as dynamic as Progressivism, but perhaps something to reflect small government and fiscal responsibility will make itself known to the party and then to America.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.  In the beginning of the revamp of conservatism, there is the word.  What word will it be?

JC Political Parties culture, language